8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service • Hacker News Board

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#481

Post by IceWreck » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 7:33 PM UTC

rtkwe wrote: post #319

_bxg1 wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Put differently: this is why we can't have nice things

Pretty much. It's a problem anyone doing privacy conscious software is going to run into, if it works it will be used by people generally agreed to be morally detestable (eg: child abusers or human traffickers). In a similar vein I think people will need to in general get comfortable with the fact that some technology will be used by bad groups and it will make it harder for law enforcement to catch and stop people b…

> Pretty much. It's a problem anyone doing privacy conscious software is going to run into, if it works it will be used by people generally agreed to be morally detestable (eg: child abusers or human traffickers).

Exactly what was happening to mastodon before they made a rule for all sane instances to not federate with neo nazi instances

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#482

Post by tripplethrendo » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 7:34 PM UTC

ddebernardy wrote: post #375

tepidandroid wrote: post #139

My opinion is that freedom of speech is a fine ideal to strive for, but it relies on having a stable society with some minimum level of education (moral and philosophical too, not just the technical kind). It requires people who are able to fully parse the implications of what they are hearing to make sound and rational judgements on the rejection of an idea or the embrace of it. It creates a moral duty for the peopl…

Personally I'm in agreement with Popper's view that societies should tolerate everything except intolerance. It draws a fine line between what's acceptable speech and what is not. And going by it, things like 8chan should get shut down. The line of thought you put forward, by contrast, rubs me in a very wrong way. It was used to justify, depending on the period and country, not allowing people to vote on the basis th…

What about Islamic intolerance?

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#483

Post by dcolkitt » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 7:34 PM UTC

tepidandroid wrote: post #139

My opinion is that freedom of speech is a fine ideal to strive for, but it relies on having a stable society with some minimum level of education (moral and philosophical too, not just the technical kind). It requires people who are able to fully parse the implications of what they are hearing to make sound and rational judgements on the rejection of an idea or the embrace of it. It creates a moral duty for the peopl…

> My opinion is that freedom of speech is a fine ideal to strive for, but it relies on having a stable society with some minimum level of education (moral and philosophical too, not just the technical kind).

It should be noted that the United States at the time of the drafting of the Constitution had way way lower rates of education than today. Even as recently as 1945, the median American only had a 10th grade education. No matter how you measure it, literacy, primary school completion, even intelligence tests, there's no question that the Americans today are significantly more educated than a hundred years ago let alone two hundred.

Yes, I know you explicitly said not to focus on "technical" education. But there's no reasonable definition of the term, whereby you can honestly make a case that the America of 1789 was somehow more educated than the the America of 2019.

All of which means that you have to bite a bullet. Either the Founding Fathers were wrong to enshrine such strong protections of free speech in our Constitution. OR admit that our citizenry more than meets the threshold you posit regarding minimum level of education.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#484

Post by Alex3917 » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 7:34 PM UTC

tepidandroid wrote: post #139

My opinion is that freedom of speech is a fine ideal to strive for, but it relies on having a stable society with some minimum level of education (moral and philosophical too, not just the technical kind). It requires people who are able to fully parse the implications of what they are hearing to make sound and rational judgements on the rejection of an idea or the embrace of it. It creates a moral duty for the peopl…

> Moderate people are repulsed by such forums and the quantity of hate-speech they generate, which further compounds the negative feedback loop.

Lots of people are afraid of blood and spiders, but we still have doctors and exterminators.

Actually changing other people's opinions doesn't always look like having your friends Like your Facebook posts.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#485

Post by empath75 » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 7:34 PM UTC

tepidandroid wrote: post #139

My opinion is that freedom of speech is a fine ideal to strive for, but it relies on having a stable society with some minimum level of education (moral and philosophical too, not just the technical kind). It requires people who are able to fully parse the implications of what they are hearing to make sound and rational judgements on the rejection of an idea or the embrace of it. It creates a moral duty for the peopl…

If 8chan was recruiting people to join al queada in Syria, we wouldn't even be having this conversation. They're a terrorist recruitment site, full stop. Shut them down.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#486

Post by taurath » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 7:35 PM UTC

oarabbus_ wrote: post #423

ddebernardy wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I'm in agreement with Popper's view that societies should tolerate everything except intolerance. It draws a fine line between what's acceptable speech and what is not. And going by it, things like 8chan should get shut down. The line of thought you put forward, by contrast, rubs me in a very wrong way. It was used to justify, depending on the period and country, not allowing people to vote on the basis th…

You make some great points. Let me also ask you a devil's advocate question. "Let's go to oarabbus_'s house at and kill him" is not protected speech, correct? I am sure everyone agrees upon this. But "Let's attack folks who are as they are a scourge upon our nation" is protected? Why?

“Let’s attack” is generally the indicator here, and where we draw the line both morally and functionally. For example - there’s been very few partisan attacks on democrats despite the absolutely virulent “they’re destroying the country” speech from every conservative news sphere (and vice versa). Pundits have learned to walk that line because that has been the line that actual violence starts. 8chan has no filter or moderation on that. We see the results.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#487

Post by lone_haxx0r » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 7:35 PM UTC

LargeWu wrote: post #425

lone_haxx0r wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moral principles don't need to be justified by the "legitimate public interest" (in the short run), otherwise we would kill all babies that we predict will become criminals, even thought they've done nothing wrong yet. I think laws should be fair and consistent. Censorship is inconsistent with freedom and justice. Additionally, the interpretation of messages is subjective. If laws are inconsistent and arbitrary (and…

"individual is the base of all laws" Yes. The Individual. Well, what about the rights of the 29 individuals that were randomly murdered, plus the scores of others wounded this past weekend? What about their justice? I'm sure it's fun for you to treat all of this as some sort of abstract thought experiment, but the reality is that people are dying senselessly and violently for no reason other than we as a society won'…

Shooting people is obviously against freedom, should be illegal and is illegal.

You're insinuating that if freedom of speech laws in the US were less principled, those people wouldn't have died. But maybe if news outlets didn't report on mass shootings those people wouldn't have died too, should we prohibit news outlets from reporting these things?

It's not the fault of free speech that some mentally unstable person killed people, the same way it's not the fault of the journalists that report these tragedies.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#488

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 7:36 PM UTC

CM30 wrote: post #429

On a related note, 8chan has both a Tor/hidden service version and a ZeroNet version, and there are ads going around on how to access those. So it's clear the folks running the site knew that something like this might happen, and set up alternatives (on 'uncensorable' services) to provide access in such a situation. It may provide for an interesting case study in whether a community site like this moving to P2P servi…

[deleted]

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#489

Post by zkomp » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 7:36 PM UTC

api wrote: post #347

tepidandroid wrote: post #139

My opinion is that freedom of speech is a fine ideal to strive for, but it relies on having a stable society with some minimum level of education (moral and philosophical too, not just the technical kind). It requires people who are able to fully parse the implications of what they are hearing to make sound and rational judgements on the rejection of an idea or the embrace of it. It creates a moral duty for the peopl…

This isn't censorship though. It's private companies refusing to host something. Nobody has been arrested for speech and there are no laws prohibiting speech that isn't overtly and specifically threatening or otherwise violates the "fire in a crowded theater" test.

"Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information, on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient". Censorship can be conducted by a government, private institutions, and corporations."/wikipedia

It is censorship, even if it is private companies and nobody got arrested etc, censorship is surpressing undesired information

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#490

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 7:36 PM UTC

crankylinuxuser wrote: post #427

ddebernardy wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I'm in agreement with Popper's view that societies should tolerate everything except intolerance. It draws a fine line between what's acceptable speech and what is not. And going by it, things like 8chan should get shut down. The line of thought you put forward, by contrast, rubs me in a very wrong way. It was used to justify, depending on the period and country, not allowing people to vote on the basis th…

Then it turns into a game (game theory, not Risk) of whom defines "intolerance". And once duly defined, it is now verboten and removed from discussion and vernacular. Hot button topics: capitalism, abortion, religion, right vs left, states rights I think the founders had it better: govt can't censor speech, so the individuals and the public could decide. Just, the framers didn't imagine companies of such scope.

[deleted]